The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus, and specifically relates to such an image processing apparatus that employs an electric power generated by a locally-equipped power generator, serving as privately-owned electric power facilities, to implement a job.
There has been such a drawback in a conventional image processing apparatus, which stores in advance an electric power generated by the locally-equipped power generator such as solar panels, etc., into a kind of an electrical accumulator, so as to use the above-stored electric power for implementing a job, such as a copying operation, a printing operation, a facsimile transmitting operation, etc., that the job cannot be implemented immediately, when the electric charge stored in the electrical accumulator is in short supply, compared to the electric power amount necessary for implementing the job concerned.
For instance, according to the technology set forth in Tokkaihei 10-240481 (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication), the system is so constituted that the operator can select any one of three options of halting the printing operation, only printing a currently printable number of paper sheets and waiting until the full recharging operation is completed so as to automatically commence printing all number of paper sheets at the time of completion of the recharging operation.
The urgency degrees of various kinds of jobs, such as a copying operation, a printing operation, a facsimile transmitting operation, etc., are different from each other, such as a job to be implemented immediately, another job that is not necessary to be implemented immediately, but can wait for a time, and so on. Further, there would be established a reserved job, a desired implementation commencing time of which is designated in advance, etc., and therefore, the timings for commencing the jobs would vary depending on the requests of the users.
According to such an image processing apparatus that can employ not only the electric power supplied from the normal power line coupled to the external power source (hereinafter, referred to as a normal electric power, for simplicity), but also the stored electric power generated and stored by the locally-equipped power generator in parallel, for instance, when the stored electric power is in short supply compared to the electric power amount necessary for implementing the job concerned, it is possible to immediately implements the concerned job by simply limiting the electric power source of the image processing apparatus concerned to the normal electric power only. However, according to the abovementioned controlling technology that straightforwardly employs the normal electric power even for implementing such the job that is not necessary to be implemented immediately, namely, the job that may be implemented after the recharging operation is fully completed, it is hardly said that the stored electric power is efficiently utilized, but there has remain some room to improve the conventional technology abovementioned from the energy saving efficiency point of view. Further, with respect to the reserved job, it is needless to say that the situation same as abovementioned is arisen when both a job to be implemented immediately and another job that is not necessary to be implemented immediately, but can wait for a time, exist.
Further, when it is impossible to print all of the total number of paper sheets to be printed in a job within a range of the electric charge amount (stored electric power amount), according to such the conventional technology that makes it possible to select any one of three options of halting the printing operation, only printing a currently printable number of paper sheets, and waiting until the recharging operation is fully completed so as to automatically commence printing all of the total number of paper sheets at the time when the recharging operation is fully completed, it has been impossible to cope with the job having a high degree of urgency, such that the user wishes to immediately commence the operation for printing all of the total number of paper sheets. Accordingly, there has arisen such a problem that the usability of the conventional apparatus as abovementioned is low.